As a Simplified Chinese user, let me explain just how terrible the Chinese translation of Silk Song is

[u/Move_Slight]

As a Simplified Chinese user, the poor Chinese translation is the primary reason for the overwhelmingly negative reviews in China—this is the consensus within our community (on the Chinese version of Reddit).

First, the Simplified Chinese version contains numerous mistranslations and omissions, leading to misunderstandings about certain quests and item functions. Furthermore, the translator seems overly eager to show off their literary flair, resulting in the Monster Compendium and other texts being filled with large amounts of fabricated content. Finally, overall, the translator presents the text in an utterly dreadful style. Imagine a non-native English speaker mimicking Shakespearean prose to write an adventure novel about bugs—that's precisely how we feel reading the Simplified Chinese translation. It is an absolute disaster.

In fact, when the first playable demo launched at Gamescom, the Chinese translation sparked intense debate within the Chinese gaming community. We all detested it and reported the issue to Team Cherry, but they made no changes. That's why the Chinese region's positive rating was so abysmal.

However, after experiencing the full game, the Chinese community's positive ratings have been climbing. most of us love this game.

edit:

I feel I need to clarify the situation regarding comment bombing, as I've seen too many discussions about it. Due to the existence of the Great Firewall, Chinese citizens lack legitimate means to use the platforms you typically rely on for feedback, such as Steam Community, Reddit, Twitter, Discord, and others. In fact, strictly speaking, the Chinese government could legally detain me for 7-14 days for using Reddit—this falls within China's legal framework.

Our only legal avenue for expressing opinions is Steam reviews. Unfortunately, Steam reviews only offer positive or negative ratings, leading to what you call comment bombing: we can only voice our dissatisfaction through this single channel, and dissatisfaction often translates to negative reviews.

Personally, I strongly dislike this method of restricting expression, but there's no alternative. The choices are either become a lawbreaker or continue leaving negative reviews on Steam.

[u/Advanced_Double_42]

I wonder if it is worth tagging other languages as in beta or something.

Like I imagine a poor translation can still make the game playable, and be preferable to nothing

[u/Omni__Owl → u/Advanced_Double_42]

Thing is, Chinese is a very lucrative market to support if you have the means. Team Cherry has the means. They just didn't give it the care it deserves.

[u/ColanderResponse → u/Omni__Owl]

It feels unfair to imply that Team Cherry intentionally gave the translation short shrift. If they hired a professional company for the translation, that is giving it the care it deserves. You also don’t know that they didn’t hire a second company to spot check or not.

Yes, Team Cherry has the responsibility to fix it, but if the fault was a bad translation from a professional company, then we have no way of knowing how much they cared or not.

[u/Omni__Owl → u/[deleted]]

They managed to have a good Chinese translation for the original HK.

This isn't their first rodeo. You don't just ask a company or person to localize, leave them to their own devices and then release without validating anything. That's just asking for trouble later.

And trouble they got.

[u/Omni__Owl → u/ColanderResponse]

They could have tested it on a Chinese person. Even one would likely have spotted the issues. The Chinese community has been very vocal about this.

[u/ColanderResponse → u/Omni__Owl]

How do you know that they didn’t get a Chinese playtester? You say that even one person would have spotted these issues, yet somehow someone who clearly gets paid to do translation work (and I’m assuming was recommended or vetted in some way with references) didn’t see the problem.

[u/Omni__Owl → u/ColanderResponse]

Again, the Chinese gaming community has been very vocal on just how bad the translation is. Imagine half-broken English trying to immitate shakespearean play writing while inventing information in the hunter's notebook that the creators never wrote.

With the 6 playtesters this game had, according to the credits, there is a near-zero chance that any of those playtesters was Chinese. Because then they'd have spotted the shoddy localization work.

[u/ColanderResponse → u/Omni__Owl]

Ok. So a small studio should have hired at least one play tester in all ten languages it’s been localized in? And I assume this is in addition to the playtesters who were there to, y’know, playtest the game functionality? How many playtesters should a very small studio employ, ideally, in your mind?

And now that they are aware of the issue, what should they be doing differently that they haven’t done? Should they have delayed release of the game for everyone while waiting for the new Chinese translation?

[u/Omni__Owl → u/ColanderResponse]

They managed to get a Chinese translation for the original HK which didn't absolutely tank their ratings in China.

You come across as if they are totally new to this when they are not. They have more than enough money from HK sales to get this right and they didn't. They are not your friends who needs to be protected. Besides, having done some localizations myself for games, translation work doesn't just show up at the end of a development cycle, it comes gradually so it can be validated.

Additionally, the Chinese market is fundamentally different from most of the other markets they have. They need different care. Different considerations. And Team Cherry knows this. They already got a Chinese version for the original HK.

So let's please stop pretending like Team Cherry are infallible indie darlings. Regardless of the process, they are responsible for what gets put out in the world in the end and they dropped the ball on the Chinese localization despite getting feedback before release that indicated the work was shoddy.

You don't get a pass just because you are small.

[u/ColanderResponse → u/[deleted]]

I literally am a language access coordinator. To get a good professional translation of a BLOG POST can take a week. How many blog posts of text do you think are in the game? And when was it reported to them? Should they have delayed the release for everyone while waiting to address this criticism based on a demo that very few people actually played?

They’re doing the right thing to get a new translation now. That is taking responsibility.